The world’s 400 richest people lost $127 billion yesterday as the global markets plunged because of the Brexit vote.

Brexit wasn’t/isn’t fundamentally about economics, but governance — the right individuals should have to decide their economy and political system. This is part of a growing global trend of individuals who are resisting centralized, non-democratic corporate control lead by unelected bureaucrats doing the bidding of transnational banks and other corporations.

Human rights should be global. Corporate globalization, however, should be resisted. That’s what NAFTA, the WTO and the TPP are all about. That’s also fundamentally what the vote to leave the EU is about.

1009 BC – BIRTH OF KING SOLOMON, SON OF DAVID
The rich rules over The poor, and The borrower is The slave of The lender. Proverbs (of Solomon) 7:22

JUNE 27

1836 – STATEMENT BY JOHN C. CALHOUN, FORMER US VICE-PRESIDENT
“A power has risen up in the government greater than the people themselves, consisting of many and various powerful interests, combined in one mass, and held together by the cohesive power of the vast surplus in banks.”

JUNE 28

1836 – DEATH OF JAMES MADISON, 4TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
Madison signed into law a bank bill in 1816 creating the Second National Bank of the United States. Chartered for 20 years, the bank amassed economic power, which led to the successful efforts of President Andrew Jackson to abolish it in 1836.

JUNE 29

1795 – DEATH OF JOHN JAY, FIRST CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE US SUPREME COURT
“Those who own the country ought to govern it.”

1858 – DEATH OF EDWARD KELLOGG, BUSINESSMAN AND ECONOMIST. HIS IDEAS INFLUENCED THE POLICIES OF THE POPULIST AND GREENBACK PARTIES
“Legal value belongs to anything which represents actual value, or capital. Its existence depends upon actual value. The worth of things of legal value depends upon their capability to be exchanged for things of actual value. Since money is our monetary system is created as debt, the ‘legal value’ of money includes both the principal debt and interest — which exceeds the ‘actual value’ of a nation’s real wealth or claims on collateral at any point in time. The only means to close this gap and cover interest payments is to create additional collateral (goods and services) via economic growth. Of course, this additional debt-based money used to pay the previous interest has its own interest. Thus the downward debt cycle never ends until it collapses.

JUNE 30

1812 – FIRST US TREASURY NOTES AUTHORIZED BY THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS
Treasury notes are promise to pay notes to borrowers to raise revenue. The US needed funds to fund the War of 1812. Rather than print US money (such as “Continentals” – an interest- and debt-free money issued by the Continental Congress to pay for the Revolutionary War), the US government followed a different course – to issue notes to borrowers with promises to pay the principal with interest at a later date. The original interest rate was 5.4%. Wars cause indebtedness. Bankers tend to like wars since they tend to create financial dependency of nations to bankers. Thomas Edison would later say about Treasury bonds, “If our nation can issue a dollar bond, it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good makes the bill good…”

1997 – PUBLICATION OF ARTICLE “BEYOND GREED AND SCARCITY” BY BERNARD LIETAER IN YES MAGAZINE
“While economic textbooks claim that people and corporations are competing for markets and resources, I claim that in reality they are competing for money – using markets and resources to do so. Greed and fear of scarcity are being continuously created and amplified as a direct result of the kind of money we are using. For example, we can produce more than enough food to feed everybody, and there is definitely enough work for everybody in the world, but there is clearly not enough money to pay for it all. In fact, the job of central banks is to create and maintain that currency scarcity.”

2005 – PUBLICATION OF “A MATTER OF INTEREST” BY WILLIAM HIXSON, CANADIAN ECONOMIST
“The very idea of a government that can create money for itself, allowing banks to create money that the government then borrows, and pays interest on, is so preposterous that it staggers the imagination. Either everyone in government in charge of the procedure is lacking in intelligence or they have been bought and paid for by those who profit from their skullduggery and their infidelity to the public interest.”

JUNE (not certain of exact date)

1992- UPDATED PUBLICATION OF MODERN MONEY MECHANICS BY THE FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF CHICAGO
“The actual process of money creation takes place in commercial banks. Banks can build up deposits by increasing loans and investments…This unique attribute of the banking business was discovered several centuries ago…At one time, bankers were merely middlemen. They made a profit by accepting gold and coins for safekeeping and lending them to borrowers. But they soon found that the receipts (bank notes or IOUs) they issued were being used as if they were a means of payment. These receipts were acceptable as if they were money since whoever held them could go to the banker and exchange them for metallic money…Then bankers discovered…that they could make loans merely by giving borrowers their promises to pay (bank notes). In this way banks began to create money…More notes (IOUs) could be issued than the gold and coin on hand, because only a portion of the notes outstanding would be presented for payment at any one time…Demand deposits (checks) are the modern counterpart of bank notes. It was a small step from printing notes to making book entries to the credit of borrowers, which the borrowers in turn, could ‘spend’ by writing checks.”

JULY 1

1818 – SECOND NATIONAL BANK OF US TRIGGERS RECESSION/DEPRESSION
The Second National Bank of the United States (a private financial institution) on this day reversed its financial course from monetary expansion to contraction. They called in loans and cut future loans. They required payments from state banks in gold alone. This caused deflation, leading to a two-year recession/depression – called the “Panic of 1819.” This is what happens time and again when private financial corporations control a nation’s money system instead of We the People through their government.

1944 – BRETTON WOODS CONFERENCE BEGINS
The United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference, known as the Bretton Woods Conference was a meeting of 44 Allied nations in New Hampshire, where the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank were created. Participant nations agreed to fix their currencies to a set value of gold. Debtor nations were to be helped with payments. The actual program was the use of loans (to be paid back with interest) to create political and economic dependence to loaning countries and their bankers. Agreements to receive further loans were often conditioned on “Structural Adjustment Programs” which called for privatization/corporatization of public services, wage cuts and perversion of economies to service debt payments.

1967 – US POSTAL SAVING SYSTEM ENDS
Opposition from commercial banks prevented the postal savings system from fully developing. The United States Postal Savings System was a postal savings system operated by the United States Postal Service from January 1, 1911 until July 1, 1967

1983 – DEATH OF BUCKMINSTER FULLER, US ARCHITECT, SYSTEMS THEORIST, AUTHOR, DESIGNER, INVENTOR AND FUTURIST
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
This is what proponents of a democratic monetary system are doing – calling for the creation of US money (rather than borrowing from banks) to rebuild our national infrastructure, democratizing the Federal Reserve system, eliminating “fractional reserve banking” (which allows banks to loan out more than their deposits) and other provisions.

JULY 2

1787 – LETTER TO JAMES MADISON FROM GOUVENEUR MORRIS, ONE OF THE PRIMARY ARCHITECTS OF THE US CONSTITUTION
In describing the motives of the owners of the new Bank of North America, Morris stated,
“The rich will strive to establish their dominion and enslave the rest. They always did. They always will…They will have the same effect here as elsewhere, if we do not, by [the power of] government, keep them in their proper spheres.”

1881 – PRESIDENT JAMES A. GARFIELD SHOT. HE DIED 10 WEEKS LATER
“Whosoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce, and when you realize that the entire system is very easily controlled, one way or another, by a few powerful men at the top, you will not have to be told how periods of inflation and depression originate.”

1890 – SHERMAN ANTITRUST ACT BECOMES LAW
The Sherman Act was an attempt to prevent unlawful restraint of trade and commerce and prevent monopolies – including banking monopolies. The Act was more aggressively enforced under President Teddy Roosevelt, including against the corporate practices of JP Morgan, the most powerful banker, if not corporate titan, of the day. In response to this increased enforcement of the Sherman Act and the Hepburn Act, Morgan created a financial panic by having his banks and those he controlled call in loans and refuse to grant new ones. The economic crash of 1907 followed. The “Panic of 1907” was a direct cause for the creation of the Federal Reserve System several years later.

1961 – DEATH OF EARNEST HEMMINGWAY, AUTHOR
“How did you go bankrupt?”
“Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”
From The Sun Also Rises

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Why this calendar? Many people have questions about the root causes of our economic problems. Some questions involve money, banks and debt. How is money created? Why do banks control its quantity? How has the money system been used to liberate (not often) and oppress (most often) us? And how can the money system be “democratized” to rebuild our economy and society, create jobs and reduce debt? Our goal is to inform, intrigue and inspire through bite size weekly postings listing important events and quotes from prominent individuals (both past and present) on money, banking and how the money system can help people and the planet. We hope the sharing of bits of buried history will illuminate monetary and banking issues and empower you with others to create real economic and political justice. This calendar is a project of the Northeast Ohio American Friends Service Committee. Adele Looney, Phyllis Titus, Donna Schall, Leah Davis, Alice Francini, Deb Jose and Greg Coleridge helped in its development. Please forward this to others and encourage them to subscribe. To subscribe/unsubscribe or to comment on any entry, email monetarycalendar@yahoo.com

We summarize last week’s activities; share next week’s upcoming events; and interview of Debbie Silverstein, State Director of Single-Payer Action Network (SPAN) Ohio, on a single-payer health care system: what it is, how it works, who supports it and how it could provide an affordable, flexible and universal alternative to the profit-driven health care system in our state and nation. (length: 37:30)